By Juan Miguel Pedraza
At the core of UND’s geospatial technology education is the geographic information system, or GIS. Now effectively as ubiquitous as the desktop computer, GIS is not only a focused piece of software, it’s fast becoming a way of thinking about the world.
In fact, if you’re talking about statistics and other information tied to a place or location, GIS now is just about the best — and often the only — way to analyze the data.
“Everybody is using GIS now,” said Bradley Rundquist, a geographer and an up-and-coming figure in national GIS circles for his work in geospatial technologies teaching and research. “Here at UND, the biggest user of GIS outside of geography is biology. That’s mostly because of the field biologists who use it to count plant and animal populations, and track environmental changes, etc.”
Rundquist says GIS and the techniques it brings to bear are gaining momentum across disciplines as more researchers figure out that it’s handy, relatively easy to use, and delivers terrific results that often are much easier to grasp than tables or charts. |
“It’s that simulation capability that’s so impressive,” Rundquist said. This capability is where the predictive power of the GIS comes from, and that’s what makes it so useful across a number of academic disciplines and in other professions.
"The GIS is a remarkably powerful tool to put together information, not only to understand, or try to understand, the current situation but also as a way to forecast a variety of effects and outcomes.”
UND delivers the power of GIS all across campus.
“This goes well beyond cartography, or traditional map-making,” said Rundquist, a popular instructor whose GIS and other geospatial technology classes are always full. “Cartography, no doubt, has been around since ancient times, but now our courses are dealing with remote sensing, digital image processing, global positioning systems, and geographic information systems.”
GIS is the one that packs them in.
“When we developed the first GIS class here at UND in the early 1990s, we soon discovered that students wanted a lot more information than they were
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resources because we can combine data sets and look at interrelationships between different phenomena, and we can actually simulate the implications of management decisions on ecosystems.”
A GIS can help a wildlife biologist see how a national park might be affected by a particular choice or decision before it is implemented.
“It’s the same thing with social phenomena, such as traffic planning,” said Rundquist, who developed both the campus-based and the online versions of the UND GIS certificate program. “Besides mapping the current situation at a particular place, for example map traffic volume on a certain thoroughfare, with a GIS you also can simulate a specified increase in traffic volume and see what that does to traffic congestion, or you could simulate what putting in a new road would do to alleviate it.”
And it’s not just the science and research community that sees the uncanny “ability” of a GIS to model decision making. A bank or a realty company, for example, can use GIS to map and analyze housing market patterns in a particular community or region.
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getting in one course," Rundquist said. "So we developed an advanced GIS course and streamlined cartography to include introductory elements of GIS. Now, our advanced GIS courses are restricted to graduate students and geography seniors, and it focuses on modeling."
"Another thing that we’ve done is add a two-credit GPS course, where students learn to use this technology to go out and collect the data to make maps or feed a GIS,” Rundquist said.
Rundquist also packaged a series of geospatial technology courses into a GIS certificate program for graduate students in other departments on campus, such as biology, geology, and earth system science. An online version of this certificate program was launched last year for working professionals who want to develop or upgrade their GIS skills. The Geography Department also tailors GIS seminars for educators, including a two-day event last year in Devils Lake, N.D.
“GIS is now a vital skill in many disciplines,” Rundquist notes. “And it’s a job-getter, too: Geography graduates from UND are working all over the country because GIS skills are relevant in so many jobs.”
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